Page 85 of The Devouring Time

I’m taken to a small cell with no window and shut inside. For the first few hours, I alternate between extremes of grief and horror. One of my friends is dead, the rest confined as I am. Imprisoned by creatures that parasitize species after species in an endless cycle throughout time.

And judging by what the orb showed me, humanity is next.

The despair of my first days here seems like nothing more than a bad mood compared to what I feel now. I spend most of my time just lying on the single mossy bed provided for me. I eat when food is brought. When I’m ordered to exercise to keep the body in good condition, I do as I’m told.

What does any of it matter? What can it matter?

The fact my memory will be erased doesn’t seem like a bad thing anymore. Does Bianca still want to remember, now that she knows the truth? How can she? How could anyone?

I don’t know how much time passes; I can’t see the sun, and even if I could, it doesn’t matter. Eventually, days or weeks or months later, my door opens and this time the Swarm crowded outside aren’t carrying food or water.

“Come with us,” one says. “It’s time for you to return.” It holds out a small vial filled with a liquid I don’t recognize. “Drink this. It will make you sleep. When you awake, you will be back in your human body and won’t remember any of this.” It pauses, then adds, “Don’t make us force you.”

Had Bianca resisted? That sounds like her. Or Titus. Or both.

But I’m not like them. I take the vial gratefully and tip it into my mouth, welcoming the darkness as it enfolds me.

Part Five

57

I come awake with a gasp. For a moment, my mind spins—I don’t know where I am, when I am.

Widdershins. Adrian. Helen. The Cult of the Waking God.

Mary King leans over me. “Are you back with us, Ster?”

I meet her eyes, and she recoils slightly at whatever she sees in mine. “They’re going to destroy us,” I blurt. “No, worse—they’re going to Become us.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

My throat is dry, and my mouth tastes like the bottom of an old shoe. I’m still handcuffed and tucked into the bed. The torches have burned down and the scent of incense faded. How long was I out?

And more importantly, what has the cult done to Helen and Adrian in the meantime?

I’m hit by a wave of longing. I want Adrian to hold me, to stroke my hair, to tell me everything is going to be all right. Even though I know it isn’t.

My voice grates coming out, as though I haven’t spoken in a thousand years. “I’ll tell you, but only if Adrian and Helen are present.”

Anger flashes across her face. “I’m not⁠—”

“Mary.” Dr. Yurevich’s calm voice cuts her off. “Mr. Caine has been unconscious for the last twenty-four hours. The magic put his body in a sort of stasis, yes, but I’m certain he could use a drink of water. As his doctor, I recommend you allow him to move around, get the blood pumping.”

“You aren’t his doctor.”

“I put him in this position, so I have a responsibility of care to him.”

She glares down at me. I try to look determined, or even stubborn, but I can feel tears trickling from the corners of my eyes even as I do so.

Bianca. Khephnes. Titus and Yrsa.

They’re all dead, even those returned to their own times. I hope Titus and Yrsa fared better than poor Bianca. Losing her husband, her child, everything she longed to go home to again…

I don’t know why she remembered enough to write my name in her letters. To recall the cyclical nature of the Swarm’s path through time. Maybe because she touched the orb directly, as the Swarm themselves would do. Or perhaps she had the same dreams I did, only used The Key of Mithras to induce “visions” that were really memories, just as Dr. Yurevich had used hypnosis and magic on me.

Mary’s expression softens. “Fine. I’ll give you a chance to pull yourself together, and let Helen and Adrian join us. But all three of you will be under guard.”

“I’m used to it by now,” I say bitterly.